Obama meets with Apple, Wal-Mart CEOs on long-term jobless, and more must-reads

President Barack Obama is meeting with CEOs of some of the biggest U.S. companies Friday morning to outline new efforts to help the long-term unemployed. In an interview with CNN, Obama said 300 companies, including Wal-Mart, Apple and Ford, will agree to new “best practices” so that companies don’t “screen people out of the hiring process just because they’ve been out of work a long time.”

There are several reports that the State Department could release an environmental analysis on the Keystone XL oil pipeline as early as Friday. Fox News said the report may disappoint environmentalists and other opponents of the proposed project. Still, the study is not the final word. The Obama administration has 90 days to determine if the pipeline is in the national interest.

The Keystone pipeline may play a role in the standoff over raising the federal debt limit, according to a report by Jerry Seib, Washington bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. In a video blog post, Seib said Republicans may press for “pro-growth policy steps” such as approval of the Keystone pipeline in return for raising the debt ceiling. They would also like budget cuts but understand there are no easy spending cuts left, he added.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting report on how banks are starting to ease limits on lending. New research from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said banks relaxed the criteria for business and consumers to obtain credit during the 18 months leading up to June 30, 2013. Any thaw in lending could boost economic growth. Banks have more than $2 trillion in excess reserves parked at the Fed.

Stay tuned: San Francisco Fed President John Williams is sitting down for an interview on the Fox Business Network at 1:15 p.m. Eastern. He will be the first Fed official to discuss the central bank’s decision to continue to taper in the face of global market turmoil and some soft U.S. economic indicators.